Throwback Thursday: The Mr. Gay China Pageant That Almost Was
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Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our 12-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful stories of Beijing's days gone by.
In 2010, Christine Laskowski was among more than 100 other journalists in attendance for the Mr. Gay China Pageant. Six years before she began making videos for FiveThirtyEight of the New York Times, she was expecting to write a summary of the event for the Beijinger. If the event had actually occurred, she may have described how it began with foreign performer singing his heart out for a rendition of "Let’s Get This Party Started," before a parade of a dozen contestants took to the stage in their underwear and in drag, each of them hoping to win the title of Mr. Gay China.
Instead, ten months ago this year, Laskowski was to report that the event had been canceled by authorities at the last minute. The contestants and organizers were disappointed, but not entirely surprised. Even though Beijing had seen many successful LGBT events the previous year, it was not the first time that similar events had been shut down.Ryan Dutcher talking to Chinese media about the pageant and what it stood to represent for China
The cancellation was especially heartbreaking because the winner would have gone on to Oslo, Norway to represent China and have a chance at becoming Mr. Gay World, and more importantly, the face of the burgeoning gay community in his homeland, less than a decade after the country ceased classifying homosexuality as a mental illness. As organizer Ryan Dutcher told the Beijinger after the event was announced to be coming to the capital, "This is much more than just a 'beauty pageant.' We will be seeking the best candidate to represent the face of gay China, which goes far beyond just a being pretty face."
This candidate for Mr. Gay China would later be surprised to learn the extent of domestic coverage of the event
In his interview with Edwards, Dutcher had expressed awareness that the event was likely under a watchful eye, but remained optimistic as they had received no official warnings, despite media coverage. "We have refrained from reaching out to the local media to prevent any scrutiny," Dutch was quoted as saying, "but the local media caught wind of it nevertheless and have asked to cover the story. The local community was on board, the media was on board, so what went wrong?
Authorities entered the venue a little more than an hour before the event was scheduled to start
Just two months after the pageant flopped, Queer Comrades, an organization dedicated to documenting China's LGBT community, released a 43-minute documentary titled Comrades, You’ve Worked Hard, telling the story of the Mr. Gay China that never was. A 19-minute cut of the film is still available on the organization’s website. Near the end of the documentary, the footage shows the organizers speaking to an army of journalists to explain the reason for the cancelation. Apparently, the authorities insisted that the event was by no means a threat to Chinese society, but that the organizers had failed to secure the proper licensing. Presumably, the presence of five scores of journalists did not help.
Dutcher tells journalists his understanding of why the event was canceled
If the pageant had garnered the attention of Beijing, its cancellation attracted the attention of the world, not only finding inches on the state media website of Xinhua, but also on the BBC and CNN. The aftermath proved that even though the event seemed a failure on the surface, the world was eagerly watching China’s gay community. Despite the setback, the community went on to organize more events – some of which were canceled as well, and some of which were not – and it is a fair assessment that without those efforts, the Chinese government might not have accepted the UN’s LGBT recommendations in 2019, or have publicly acknowledged petitions to legalize same-sex marriage late last year. Therefore, even as we look back at these events that never came to be, we can say that their efforts were not completely in vain.
READ: Beijing LGBT Center Celebrates 10 Years of Inclusivity
Images: The Guardian, Queer Comrades
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